Photo Credit: Jacob Wackerhausen

Despite certain treatment-related advantages, younger Black patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are more likely to present with late-stage disease and reside in disadvantaged settings than White patients, according to findings published in Clinical Lung Cancer. Michael T. Jaklitsch, MD, and colleagues compared demographics, tumor characteristics, and survival in a cohort of 1.7 million patients, 77, with 107 aged less than 50. Compared with White patients, more Black patients in groups A (ages 18-44) and B (ages 45-49) presented with stage IV disease (A: 39.7% vs 35.0%; B: 40.9% vs. 35.0%), had higher 90-day mortality (A: 2.7% vs 2.2%; B: 4.0% vs 2.7%), and were uninsured (A: 14.2% vs 9.6%; B: 14.8% vs 10.2%). These findings were observed even though Black patients lived closer to treating hospitals and were more often treated in academic centers, according to Dr. Jaklitsch and colleagues, who advocated for interventions focused on social determinants of health to address these disparities.